LCD flickers when computer not actively in use

I have a MacBook Core Duo machine with an LCD that flickers. Normally I'd immediately suspect the inverter, but the behavior on this machine is different from what I've seen before. The flickering usually starts after the computer has been left alone for a few minutes, and then stops if the cursor is moved. Is it still the inverter, or is this caused by something else?

4 Answers

A roommate of mine had a similar problem. It turned out that replacing the inverter fixed the problem.

My best guess is that the inverter functions ok when at full power, but flickers when trying to deliver reduced brightness (as happens when the laptop is idle for a while). My roommate and I were able to duplicate this by turning down the brightness, which caused the display to flicker more.

I'm not really sure what the problem could be, but since it only occurs when the computer has been sitting idle for a while, my guess would be that it might have something to do with the screen saver or sleep mode. Try changing those settings to off (or just delay them longer) and see if the problem still persists. I'm not really sure if that would be a software issue or a hardware issue, but it seems like a good place to start.

I have the same machine (MacBook 2GHz Core Duo), have had the same problem for years and have never received a clear answer on a fix. Here's a link that should give some insight into how prevalent the complaint is and how it's been handled on apple's discussion boards. http://appledefects.com/?p=235

that sounds like a bad backlight inverter, the inverter generates power to drive the cfl lamps that light the display. when they are faulty, they tend to flicker, and let the screen go dark all together. try lovering the brightness, that might minimize the issue, if it still happens once the brightness is completly off, than it might be a panel failure.

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